1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to used, or empty, household packaging containers, specifically to a hand-held compressing device generally used to reduce the amount of storage space required by these used or empty containers, in households or businesses.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
As our society continues to move toward efficiency and increased consumption, we are faced with the problems of more waste being created by households and businesses as they consume products. Although we are moving toward recycling to help save on the need for more raw materials, we still have the problem of where to put the containers we empty until recycling/garbage trucks take them away. These products could consist generally of plastic containers, paper products, or soft metals such as aluminum. Until now, there have been instruments designed and patented to crush these types of containers, but they used levers and or cranks to create a force great enough to compress the containers. This results in the need to take up a lot of space and or the need to mount the mechanism on a wall or similar structure. Thus, resulting in the inefficient use of space, or added labor just to make the mechanism usable. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,265,530 assigned to Jawz, Inc. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,802,968 assigned to The Coca-Cola Company one or more hinged parts are used to generate a leverage point, so that enough force can be generated to crush the used or empty household containers. The use of the levers in both of these examples means that the mechanism must be secured to a wall or similar structure before use. Finding a proper structure that can hold these mechanisms can be difficult in itself in several ways. The place must be structurally sound with plenty of space to properly operate the mechanism, and be out of the way so that the mechanism won""t be xe2x80x9coffensivexe2x80x9d to the eye, as it will be visible to anyone present in the area it is secured. This may result in the mechanism being placed in an inappropriate spot. Then there is the potential difficulty in properly mounting the mechanism, which could require the finding wall studs and drilling. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,448,946 to Laux, opposing cranks are proposed which make it possible to set on a counter, but, again, it will take up quite a bit of counter space, as well as being large and cumbersome. If Laux""s one sided lever idea is used, the mechanism must again be mounted in some way presenting the problems already discussed.
All three inventions end up crushing or compressing the containers, but, in the use of the levers or gears, which help to create greater force in relation to how much force the consumer applies, they are more complex. They do not use the inherent design of these containers, which if used properly, will make the compressing of them require much less force, and will also help maintain their compressed size. All three designs call for the removal of the cap and don""t call for its replacement, which means that air can get back in, and most containers will naturally expand when the force is released, thus increasing the final xe2x80x9ccompressedxe2x80x9d size. And the objective is to make the containers as small as possible. The lever arms add to the number of parts required to build the product for the manufacturer, thus increasing its cost, or creating the previously mentioned problems in the mounting or storage of the mechanisms.
Accordingly, several objects and advantages of my invention are:
a) that it is a simple one-piece, hand-held, device that requires no additional mounting procedures, and can easily be placed out of the way, in a drawer, transported on trips, or hung in an out-of-site location;
b) that it takes advantage of the inherent design of these types of containers by causing xe2x80x9cfailure pointsxe2x80x9d in their structure, so it is very easy to crushxe2x80x94for men, women and teenagers; and
c) that it also takes advantage of the re-tightening of the cap after compression, so that air can""t escape and the compressed containers stay as small as possible.